Black and grey fine line lily with a Greek word in script lettering beside it, tattooed on the side of the torso.

Lily and Greek lettering on the side of the torso

Botanical · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey outline lily sits on the side of the torso, with shaded petals, stamens and a curled stem edge. Beside it, a Greek word is written in a flowing black script with a slight slant. The skin is lit softly against a red fabric at the top of the frame.

Botanical Lettering Ribs Lily Flower Lettering Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow came early that year to the pass above Vrisa, and the two brothers, Stelios and Nikos, had not spoken since their father's sheep were sold at the Thursday market. Their mother sent them up the goat track with one loaf and one lantern, because the high meadow needed the flock brought down before the drifts closed the gap.

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Halfway up, the wind took the lantern. Nikos slipped on the loose scree and his ankle folded under him. Stelios could have walked on, and the village would have said he had done nothing wrong. Instead he sat down in the snow, broke the bread in two, and tied his brother's ankle with the strap from his own pack. Neither of them said a word about the sheep.

They reached the meadow in the dark, and by morning the sky had cleared. Where Stelios had knelt beside the rock, a single white lily stood up through the crust, its petals still closed tight. The old women of Vrisa say no lily had ever grown above the tree line, and none has grown there since that did not have two sets of footprints beside it.

The brothers brought the flock down together, Nikos limping at the back with the bell. Their mother counted the sheep at the gate and found them all. Then she counted her sons, twice, before she let them in.